Yesterday‘s Noon rally at San Francisco’s Tesla showroom had another large turnout with protesters crowded around the intersection and in the center island on Van Ness Avenue. The energy was lively as participants chanted and waved to drivers who honked encouragingly, along with the occasional dog, barking in solidarity.

There was a wide range of protestors at the showroom on Saturday who were carrying out the now weekly ritual of discouraging prospective Telsa buyers from supporting Musk. A lot of older residents were in attendance who appeared to have years of protest experience under their belts.

Our favorite was a duo in berets and sunglasses waving their signs authoritatively, which read: "T-Rump Releases Musk-Turd Gas on America's Democracy" and "Resist Destruction by Musk, Vance, and Trump."

A barking dog can also be heard in some of the video footage, which inspires an idea for future Saturdays.

Dog owners: Bring your pups to the Tesla showroom and let them bark their heads off — for democracy.

Photos and videos by Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Previously: Meet The Organizer Who Turned The Tesla Showroom Into a Weekly Protest Hub

#Lightning strikes the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco. pic.twitter.com/T01WHOLFt4

— Karl Mondon (@karlmondon) September 12, 2017

This is just one more extra dramatic photo of last night's crazy storm, via Mercury-News photographer Karl Mondon.

Watch out for more lightning, and possibly rain, after midnight tonight (at least in SF, according to my weather app).

Related: [Update] Photos: Freak September Thunderstorm Brings 1200+ Lightning Strikes

It's weird enough that we're getting a thunderstorm tonight, but this was one with an unusually high number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. Also, meteorologists are saying that more thunderstorms are possible on Tuesday, so your freaked out pets shall continue the freaking out.

We've discussed before why thunderstorms are relatively rare for San Francisco, but it's been a weird year! This storm came with pea-sized hail, and as SFGate reports, via the National Weather Service, the Bay Area saw over 1200 lightning strikes between noon and late evening, at which point the thunder was calming down in SF.

The Giants' game against the Dodgers was delayed because of the storm, and there were some dramatic shots of lightning over AT&T Park.

Also, obviously, Twitter was ablaze with video and photos of the lightning, some of which you can see below. Have a great shot? Send it to us at tips@sfist.com.

This post has been updated throughout.

Some Muni bus shelters on Saturday weren't displaying arrival times for buses: Instead, they read "Lowrider Cruise, 4/8 6pm to 9 pm." And cruise they did: The San Francisco Lowrider Council gathered 50 or so vehicles, by Mission Local's count, for a tribute to the late Mexican-American icon Selena. Her birthday, a Texas holiday, is later this month. Josh Jacobson was on hand and took these pictures of the event. The next big lowriders gathering is the 29th, for the Cesar Chavez parade.

Related: Video: All About SF's Rad Lowrider Culture

Famed author Jack London was many things in his 40 years of life: a war correspondent, an oyster pirate, a sailor, and a photographer. It is that last bit which the New York Times focuses on as it looks back at a rarely seen collection of his photographs recently published in a book titled "Jack London: The Paths Men Take."

The pictures cover his days in London, Hawaii, Japan, China, Korea, and San Francisco immediately after the 1906 earthquake. It is the SF batch that will likely resonate most with residents of the Bay Area, as they depict a city devastated by the earthquake and resulting fires. London was born in San Francisco, but lived by Lake Merritt at the time of the quake. He was hired by Collier’s to take pictures of the wreckage, and his photographs and descriptions of the scenes he encountered are enough to send chills down the spine of anyone anxiously awaiting the next big one.

“Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed,” London wrote of the quake. “San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories and a fringe of dwelling-houses on its outskirts.”

He even traveled to Santa Rosa, and captured on film the destruction he found.

Photo of Santa Rosa, 1906, by Jack London. Courtesy of California State Parks via New York Times.

His great-granddaughter, Tarnel Abbott, told the Times that the harsh reality shown in London's pics reminds her of the present day. “It’s so reminiscent of what we see today," she observed. "There are so many homeless people sleeping on our streets.”

London later moved to Sonoma County's Glen Ellen, where he lived until his death — 100 years ago today in 1916.

Related: San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake, Now In Color

Big Wheelers turned out big time Sunday for the 16th annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel rally on Vermont Street, where roughly 2,000 bunny-eared, onesie-clad, super hero costume-wearing San Franciscans — and a few hundred actual children — raced Big Wheels en masse down the city’s crookedest street. SFist has a treasury of pictures and videos of the proceedings, most notably this first-person video that shows exactly what it’s like to hot dog a Big Wheel down that hill.

“I didn't have a GoPro, so I went slow and took a video with my cell phone,” writes YouTuber Roger Filmyer.

The costumes were exceptional, with some particular standouts like Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble, a silver-painted “Aladdin Sane”-style David Bowie, and two Spocks with USS Enterprise-refurbished Big Wheels as crowd favorites. But the biggest applause winner was the adorable infant Flossie, at eight months old the youngest-ever competitor in Bring Your Own Big Wheel history. The little nipper did not compete riding a Big Wheel, but instead the baby walker seen above. “It’s just a Fisher-Price walker,” Flossie’s mom told SFist. “It’s not good for downhill racing.”

Photo: Bhautik Joshi

As one would imagine, quite a few Donald Trump and Donald Drumpf costumes were on hand, as well as a myriad of other presidential candidate costumes. “We have one person who may be Clinton or Sanders, but she’s undecided,” one of the Trump gaggle told SFist.

Photo: Bhautik Joshi

As Bring Your Own Big Wheel celebrated its 16th year, co-founder Frog reflected on the race’s growth and evolution — having moved from Lombard Street to Vermont Street in 2008 due to growing popularity. “It’s changed a lot because of neighborhood regulations,” Frog told SFist. “When you get to a certain size, you start to need the street permit and a park permit, because we use part of the [McKinley Square] park. It’s snowballed crowdwise into a costly event. With so many people now, there’s two different street permits which require us to have insurance and porta-potties and pay for cops and Parks and Rec cops, which are two different types of enforcement.”

Thus the reason that organizers keep fairly quiet on social media in recent years, telling fans to "keep your blabbing to a minimum" for fear that the crowd along the narrow street gets any bigger.

Photo: Bhautik Joshi

“It costs us about eight to ten thousand dollars a year,” Frog said, noting that the only vendor the race will allow is Daniel Webster Elementary School. The race has been approached by big brand names offering sponsorship deals, but they’ve all been turned down. “We don’t want it to turn into a commercial event. We just want it to be people out on Big Wheels,” Frog said.

Photo: Bhautik Joshi

To that end, you can support the Bring Your Own Big Wheel by making a donation to their PayPal account to keep the event running smoothly for another year. The races, however, do not run smoothly. They are no longer organized into heats, but instead a two-hour mishmash of madcap Big Wheel stupidity and spectacular, agony of defeat somersault wipeouts “The only organization is to not run into each other,” one racer said.

Previously: 11 Photos Of The 15th Annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel

With its fog-free evenings and sprays of cirrocumulus clouds, September has given us some phenomenal sunsets, especially a string of them last week. And then, yesterday evening, there was another one for the books that was well documented on social media.

In case you were trapped in a dinner or don't have any friends who enjoy documenting such things, here are a collection of shots.

Sunday brought one of those rare, actually warm SF nights, with temperatures all over town over 70 degrees well past sunset. And the sunset itself — aided by the outer-ring cloud remnants of Hurricane Dolores — was especially pretty. Here are just a few shots gathered from social media.

The weather today will be similarly warm, but it looks like the evening will cool down slightly by comparison.

Solidifying our town's reputation for being a shameless haven for many thousands of overgrown children, the 15th annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel race down Vermont Street happened on Sunday drawing hundreds, along with their plastic trikes.

While drag fans and lovers of ironic Jesus impersonators flocked to Golden Gate Park on Easter Sunday, fans of childish modes of transportation and gravity-induced chaos flocked to Potrero Hill for the annual Big Wheel race. And if you feel like you didn't hear much about it on social media, that is kind of by design — organizers have decided that the event has basically reached capacity in recent years, and they ask those in the know to "KEEP YOUR BLABBING TO A MINIMUM."

As is tradition, all metal and metal-spoked tricycles are forbidden, so it's hard plastic all the way, and everyone rolls down SF's actually twistiest street banging into each other, and the hay bales that serve as guard rails.

The race didn't go on until 4 p.m., after the rain had passed through, and it looks like everyone had a swell time once again.

Play on, San Francisco.

All photos by Bhautik Joshi/Flickr.

Related: New York Writer Moves To S.F., Proceeds To Shame Us All For Not Being Grown Up Enough

What are you up to Saturday afternoon? If you're not sure yet, we've got the answer: the opening of City At Large: Photographs of San Francisco.

Twelve photographers, many of whom you've probably seen on the pages of SFist, have assembled a great outdoor photo exhibit of over 30 huge prints in the parking lot of Adolph Gasser Photo (181 Second Street).

According to photographer Troy Holden, "the prints were made cheaply on the oversize engineering copy machine at FedEx Office for $9 each. The prints were then wheat pasted to the parking lot walls to ensure they'll stay up for several months."

The photos, as you can see. focus on "candid moments seen while walking around the City," Holden says, from photographers like Chris Beale, Brian Brophy, Reynaldo Cayetano, Jr., Brandon Doran, Troy Holden, Bhautik Joshi, Suzan Kaplan, Doc Pop, David Root, Tiffany Sainz, Oscar Santos, and Brian Sorensen.

Saturday's the show's opening, from 2-5 p.m. "It's free and open to the public," Holden says. "Just come into the parking lot and take a look at the photos."

You know BART's Powell Street Station. But maybe you won't know it for long, as BART has set their Station Modernization Program sights on its vast, white, sprawl. That's right, it's time for everyone's favorite place to play "what's that smell and did I just step in it?" to get a remodel.

According to BART, the transit agency is eager to improve the station with futuristic features like "general station cleanliness and upkeep" and "increased safety and security." To which we respond: "no need to wait for a face-lift to do that stuff! You can start today!"

BART also offers the exciting promise of a "redesigned Hallidie Plaza," "brighter and more efficient LED lighting," "upgraded signage and information kiosks," "bicycle parking within the station," "improved access for people with disabilities," and a new ceiling like one of the options provided in the gallery above.

They also says we'll get "upgraded escalator and elevators," which is where we all make a poop joke, and "enhanced station wi-fi," which is where we all make a joke about that time BART shut down cell phone service during a demonstration and sparked global outrage.

Anyway! Powell Station users are urged to attend one of two In-Station Open Houses at the Hallidie Plaza Entrance to provide input on the new and improved Powell Station to be, from between 4 and 7 p.m. on Monday, June 30, or between 7 and 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1.

Even if you can't stop by during either of the open houses, you can fill out a survey here on what you believe BART needs to prioritize to make your station experience better. (Sadly, "less biohazardous waste" is not one of the options.)

Last week, SFist showed you Troy Holden's Neighbors, the San Francisco-based photographer's breakthrough portraiture series. Working with the North of Market-Tenderloin Community Benefit District, he snapped 50 portraits of individuals and families at their homes or business in the Tenderloin, SOMA, or MidMarket neighborhoods. Tonight marks the opening reception of the show, which you can and should catch at the Lower Branch Gallery.

All 50 prints will be on display. If you were a fan of the popular preview, which let's assume you absolutely are, you have to check out his work in person. We only gave you only 28 shots of the show; there are many more to be seen. Opening reception goes from 6pm - 10 pm tonight. Neighbors: A Collection of Environmental Portraits runs until January 22.

Read our interview with Holden here.

Lower Branch Gallery: 233 Eddy (between Taylor and Jones), S.F.

SoMa, the Tenderloin, and Mid-Market (two of them real, the latter freshly conceived and coined) received heaps of ink over the last year. Some good, some bad, most of it controversial in one way or another. Each hood proved great for clicks and heated commentary on SFist and other publications. Why? Because each area is going through a major culture and economic shuffle with regard to food, tech, economy, and residential growth. Just to name a few. But after the brouhahas over NEMA, evictions, and rooftop gardens fade, we're left with the people that call these neighborhoods home. San Francisco-based photographer Troy Holden set about to capture the people that live in all three, and his results are astounding in their honesty and quiet beauty.

What could have turned into a photo collection that fetishized or demonized the residents of SoMa, the Tenderloin, and Mid-Market instead presents these people, your neighbors, as-is. In collaboration with the North of Market-Tenderloin Community Benefit District, Holden made 50 portraits of individuals and families in their homes or places of business. Each participant will receive a print of their portrait and digital copies of the files. He also allowed us to share with you some of the images set to appear in his upcoming gallery exhibit Neighbors: A Collection of 50 Portraits at the Lower Branch Gallery (opening Jan. 17 and running until Jan. 22).

We asked Holden to tell us more about his upcoming show, his subjects, his camera, and more.

SFist: What is the "Neighbors" portrait collection?
Troy Holden: "Neighbors" is a collection of 50 environmental portraits of people who live and work in San Francisco's Tenderloin, Mid-Market, and South of Market neighborhoods. Over a one year period from 2012-2013, I made portraits of individuals and families in their homes or places of business.

Each participant receives a matted and framed 8x10 print of the portrait and digital copies of the photo files. To commemorate the project, gallery will exhibit all 50 portraits for a one week period. The project participants will be invited to attend opening night reception.

SFist: How did you get involved with this project?
Holden: I was approached by the North of Market-Tenderloin CBD (Community Benefit District) asking if I was interested in making a community portrait. I was very interested! The central/downtown neighborhoods had been my home since moving to San Francisco in the mid-90's. The project offered an opportunity to deeply document and give back to an area of the City that I've had an ongoing relationship with and really care about.

When we first started talking, the CBD suggested I invite the neighborhood to a central location and take traditional portraits using a white backdrop and studio lighting. This sounded boring and I felt it would be reflected in the portraits. I offered an alternative: photograph people in the spaces where they live and work. No choreography or complicated lighting. Instead I would make an honest portrait of people and places as they looked on any average day.

SFist: How did you find people willing to be photographed?
Holden: This was most challenging part of completing the portrait collection. My first leads were provided by the CBD. Their organization has deep connections in the neighborhood. They used email and word of mouth to find the first people who were interested in participating.

When those leads lost momentum, I made flyers and hung them in neighborhood businesses and residential hotels/apartment buildings. The flyers listed my phone number/email address for people to contact me to setup a portrait session. Towards the middle of the project, a friend who has worked in the Mid-Market area for 25 years gave me another 10 leads, which in turn lead to 5 more leads. As the project reached 50 completed portraits, the Central City Extra newspaper ran an article with the project details and my contact information which resulted in the final leads.

SFist: What happens during a portrait session? How do you get them to relax in front of the camera?
Holden: When I arrive to a sitting, I have two main goals: break the ice and identify the best position and light source for the portrait.

The first part is the hardest. Making a portrait of a stranger in a private space like an apartment or office can be an intense experience for both the person being photographed and the photographer. So I quickly attempt to remove any awkwardness and establish trust. If the person is nervous/anxious/tense — those emotions will overwhelm the portrait.

Once the subject is comfortable, I begin to mentally plan the photograph: position, pose, posture, and facial expression. My only verbal instructions are to not rearrange anything in the background and to not give me a cheesy smile. I begin casually taking photographs while our conversation continues, and eventually my camera's presence fades into the background. At this point is usually when the best portraits are made.

SFist: What camera and lighting setup did you use? Some of our readers want to know the technical aspects.
Holden: The portraits were made using a natural light source (usually a window), a digital camera, and a wide angle lens. The wide angle lens allowed me to include as much of the background as possible, even in smaller spaces. On occasion, I used a small flash to illuminate facial shadows caused from overhead lights. I never knew what the lighting situation would be before I arrived, so I kept the setup simple and consistent.

SFist: Anything else you'd like to add?
Holden: I'm very thankful for everyone that helped me find people interested in making a portrait. The project would not have been possible without their generous referrals. Moreover, I'm overwhelmingly grateful to the people who participated and let me photograph them.

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Neighbors: A Collection of 50 Portraits opens on Friday, January 17th at the Lower Branch Gallery (233 Eddy) in San Francisco. The photos will be printed in three different sizes, the largest being 40" wide. The exhibit will run for one week.

Well, this is downright delightful. A new Twitter account, @OldSanFrancisco, tweets black-and-white images of ye olde San Francisco. So far they've got images of Stockton Street in Chinatown (1951), South of Market ('52), Golden Gate Bridge (62), a police standoff during robbery of Old Poodle Dog Restaurant on Post Street ('57), San Francisco Airport ('64), and more.

A pretty nifty era in the City, provided you weren't black, female, queer, Chinese, or somewhat different in a myriad of ways. But SF did have a middle class back then, so that's something!

Anyway here are several images to warm up your Friday afternoon. Enjoy. (Oh, and follow @OldSanFrancisco now.)

Happy All Hallow's Eve, folks! Today is a day when, at least back in our halcyon youths, we roamed around the neighborhood at dusk, seeking fun-size treats while wearing our finest spooky, princess, and/or action-figure threads. It was not a time to get as wasted as possible and terrorize people on Muni. Indeed, those were the days. Razor blade-apple folklore and all.

Anyway, for your holiday viewing pleasure we have amassed a glorious collection of photos featuring the childhood costumes of the SFist staff.

Adorable. All of them.